HIAWATHA’S PHOTOGRAPHING.
[With no apology to Mr. Longfellow.]
From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood,
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together,
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the second book of Euclid.
This he perched upon a tripod—
Crouched beneath its dusky cover—
Stretched his hand, enforcing silence—
Said, “Be motionless, I beg you!”
Mystic, awful was the process.
All the family in order
Sat before him for their pictures:
Each in turn, as he was taken,
Volunteered his own suggestions,
His ingenious suggestions.
All of which during the course of the poem succeeded in driving poor Hiawatha to the verge of madness, until—
Finally my Hiawatha
Tumbled all the tribe together
(“Grouped” is not the right expression),
And, as happy chance would have it,
Did at last obtain a picture
Where the faces all succeeded:
Each came out a perfect likeness.
Then they joined and all abused it,
Unrestrainedly abused it,
As “the worst and ugliest picture
They could possibly have dreamed of.”
······
All together rang their voices,
Angry, loud, discordant voices,
As of dogs that howl in concert,
As of cats that wail in chorus.
But my Hiawatha’s patience,
His politeness and his patience,
Unaccountably had vanished,
And he left that happy party.
Neither did he leave them slowly,
With the calm deliberation,
The intense deliberation,
Of a photographic artist:
But he left them in a hurry,
Left them in a mighty hurry,
Stating that he would not stand it,
Stating in emphatic language
What he’d be before he’d stand it.
Hurriedly he packed his boxes:
Hurriedly the porter trundled
On a barrow all his boxes:
Hurriedly he took his ticket:
Hurriedly the train received him:
Thus departed Hiawatha.
But perhaps the cleverest part of the poem is the seemingly innocent paragraph of introduction which reads as follows:
“In an age of imitation, I can claim no special merit for this slight attempt at doing what is known to be so easy. Any fairly practiced writer, with the slightest ear for rhythm, could compose, for hours together, in the easy running meter of ‘The Song of Hiawatha.’ Having, then, distinctly stated that I challenge no attention in the following little poem to its merely verbal jingle, I must beg the candid reader to confine his criticism to its treatment of the subject.”
Notice how metrically this sounds. Tune up to the Hiawatha pitch and you will have the same swinging measure in the above sentences.
Lewis Carroll’s real acquaintance with Tennyson began in that eventful year of 1856. The odd, shaggy man, with the fine head and the keen, restless eyes, fascinated the young Student greatly. He went often to Tennyson’s home and did his best to be interested in the poet’s two little boys, Hallam and Lionel. Had they been girls there would have been no difficulty, but he always had strained relations with boys; still, as these “roundabouts” belonged to the little Tennysons, we find a sort of armed truce kept up between them. He bargained with Lionel to exchange manuscripts, and he got both boys to sign their names in his album; he even condescended to play a game of chess with Lionel, checkmating him in six moves, but he distinctly refused to allow that young gentleman to give him a blow on the head with a mallet in exchange for some of his verses. However, we may be pretty sure that Lewis Carroll’s visits to the Tennysons were much pleasanter when the “roundabouts” were not visible.
That same year he made the acquaintance of John Ruskin, and the great art critic turned out to be a very valuable friend, as was also Sir James Paget, the eminent surgeon, who gave him many hints on medicine and surgery, in which Charles Dodgson was deeply interested. His medical knowledge was quite remarkable, and the books he collected on the subject would have been valuable additions to any physician’s library. In the year 1857 he met Thackeray, who had come to Oxford to deliver his lecture on George III, and liked him very much. The Oxford “dons” were certainly fortunate in meeting all the “great ones” and seeing them generally at their best.
The year 1858 was an uneventful year; college routine varied by much reading, afternoons on the river or in the country, and evenings devoted to preparations for the morrow’s work. Lewis Carroll kept a diary which harbored many fine thoughts and noble resolves, many doubts and fears, many hopes, many plans for the future, for he was making up his mind to the final step in the life of a Christ Church Student—that of taking Holy Orders, in other words, of being ordained as a clergyman.